


Jim & Bones in Iowa

by Canon_Is_Relative



Series: The Stories We Tell, The Lies We Live [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Family, M/M, Pining, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 18:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2861609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk and McCoy are on leave, and go to spend Christmas with Jim's grandparents on their farm in Iowa. </p><p>There is angst and pining because it's Jim and it's Bones and it's me and I can't ever just let them be happy?</p><p>A sequel to "Jim & Bones in Georgia" but it stands alone -- all you have to know is that Jim and Bones were a ~thing when they were in school, but have agreed to keep a lid on things now that they serve together because if they were caught fraternizing they'd be assigned to different ships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jim & Bones in Iowa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImpishTubist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/gifts).



> Dear Imp: Merry not-Christmas! I swear to god, I was going to write you some Cap fic, or some WW fic, or something.....but then I had a memory of one of our "Jim and Bones are secretly drunk farmers" conversations and this happened. *bangs head against wall* Why can't these boys just be happy and in love? I don't know. I hope you don't hate this, anyway! Apparently I'll be writing angsty Jim/Bones until I retire to the back 40.
> 
> Bones's line, _“Well, who in the damn galaxy ain’t,”_ stolen shamelessly from "Firefly."
> 
> [The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey](http://www.amazon.com/The-Christmas-Miracle-Jonathan-Toomey/dp/0763636290) is the best Christmas book in the world, the only one I read every year. The pictures are gorgeous and I get tears in my eyes reading it. So shut up, it's not just Jim.
> 
> And finally a general FYI: I don't give a fffffff how improbable it is that Jim's grandparents have an old-fashioned working farm, that's been my headcanon my whole life and I'm sticking to it.

Bones was muttering under his breath, picking at the uncooperative pieces of tape clinging to his fingers and glaring at the package in front of him. 

 

Jim watched the show with pursed lips, biting down on a grin and trying not to let on that watching the man who could work surgical miracles struggle with wrapping Christmas presents was the most adorable thing ever.

 

Bones finally gave up. “For the love of…She’s twelve years old, Jim. This ain’t exactly necessary.”

 

“What?” Jim scoffed, tying a ribbon around the last package in his pile. Bones had barely made a dent in his. “She’s twelve years old, so this is _entirely_ necessary.”

 

“‘To Joanna, from Santa’?” Bones read the tag he was supposed to affix to one of his daughter’s presents. “I’m pretty sure she’s got Santa figured out, Jim. Along with the Tooth Fairy and the Orion Elf.”

 

“Bones,” Jim rolled his eyes. “Seriously, man, when did you turn eighty years old? You’re like one of those grumpy old assholes who warns kids off their lawn because they have nothing better to do. It’s _Christmas._ Some things, you just do.”

 

Bones pushed the half-wrapped present across the table and reached for his heavily-spiked eggnog. “Yeah. Like suffer through these awful fucking drinks because it’s the only socially acceptable way to get lit this time of year.”

 

Jim propped his elbows on the table and looked at Bones, studying him in the odd, shifting light of the Christmas tree. “You’ve been edgy since you got here, Bones. What’s going on? You really have a thing against Christmas, or is this about something else?”

 

“Don’t try and analyze me, Jim,” Bones grumbled into his drink. “You’re bad at it.”

 

Jim huffed and pushed himself to his feet, a show of irritation. “If you’re going to be a dick, I need another drink.”

 

“Bring the bottle.”

 

Jim ended up wrapping the rest of the presents. 

 

=^=

 

It wasn’t exactly a winter wonderland outside but Joanna, who’d never spent Christmas further north than Nashville, had come tumbling out of the groundcar in a state of ecstatic delight, marveling at the half-inch of glittering snow frosting the Iowa landscape. Jim’s grandmother, already tickled to have a child in her house at Christmas for the first time in over a dozen years, was delighted with McCoy’s daughter and the two of them had taken to each other like a house on fire. Jo’s usual reticence around strangers had been nowhere to be seen that first night as she and Grandma Gillian baked cookies and sung carols while Jim and Bones relaxed with eggnog in front of a roaring fire. 

 

The next day, it was possible that they’d gone a little overboard when they went into town. 

 

Jim and Grandma Gillian had left Bones and Joanna to explore the old Kirk farm with Grandpa Tiberius while they tramped up and down Riverside’s main street, ducking into every store that looked like it might have something to offer that Joanna might like. Jim’s first words to Bones on their return, _Don’t hate me but I want to spoil your daughter rotten_ , hadn’t gone over so well, and two days later Jim still wasn’t sure where they stood.

 

The last present he wrapped was decidedly less nicely-done than the first, so Jim grabbed another card and wrote, _Dear Joanna-Banana, I’m sorry this present looks so bad, my elves got lazy and I had to step in to get everything wrapped on time. It’s harder than you think to wrap presents while wearing fuzzy mittens! I hope you like it anyway. Love, Santa._

 

Cracks showed in Bones’s expression almost at once but, given how eggnogged-up he was, Jim thought he held his scowl in place for an impressively long time. “She’s gonna know it’s you,” was all he said, though. “She’ll never buy that Santa would call her Joanna-Banana.”

 

“Seriously?” Jim chocked his shoulder against Bones’s. Between the fire and the booze he was almost uncomfortably warm, but the times he got to share body heat with Bones were so few and far between that he’d take what he could get and never complain. “Seriously, that’s your problem with this?”

 

Bones squinted at him. “I don’t got a problem.”

 

“Yes you do,” Jim said, jostling him again just because he could.

 

Bones lay back, snagging a throw pillow and squashing it beneath his head. Jim watched him punch it into shape, watched him shift around until he got comfortable, feeling kind of enthralled. Bones did that to him, it was a Thing.

 

“Okay then, smartass,” Bones said. “What do you think my problem is?”

 

“Huh?” Jim was kind of a genius, that was also a Thing.

 

Bones snorted. “How drunk are you, Jim?”

 

“Drunk, me? I’m not drunk, how drunk are you?”

 

“Jim,” Bones said, very seriously for all that his eyes were shut and his hands lay slack on his belly, “You’re starin’ at me, I can tell. And you didn’t listen to what I said. S’means your drunk. I know you, kid. I know these things.”

 

Jim sighed and flopped down beside Bones. This was a mistake — the flopping, not the part about being next to Bones — and he had to lie very still for a moment until the room stopped spinning and the lights on the tree stopped twinkling like they were fairies on speed sent to torture his poor sodden brain. He hadn’t been drinking much, this past year, and his tolerance had gone to shit. Since he and Bones agreed they had to keep a lid on whatever it was between them, he couldn’t drink around Bones and he didn’t really want to drink when he wasn’t around Bones, so the whole “drinking just ‘cuz” thing had kind of fallen by the wayside. He’d accused Bones of being a crotchety old man and though he wouldn’t say it, Jim thought it might have been a “takes one to know one” kind of a thing they had going on here.

 

“I guess I’d just appreciate it,” Bones was saying, and possibly he’d been talking for awhile while Jim was getting himself under control and also reacquainting himself with the sight of Bones’s lips from such close proximity. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get into the habit of lyin’ to my daughter. ‘Bout Santa Claus and peace in the Galaxy and all the rest of it. Didn’t think you of all people would go for…” Bones trailed off, waving a hand in the air above his head.

 

“I of all people,” Jim echoed. Broken record, his grandma would say.

 

“Yeah, you. You, Jim. You…” Bones let out a sigh, scrubbed both hands over his face and through his hair, and pushed himself up, swaying a bit. “Goddamn. I’m drunk.”

 

Their feet were still close together, even after Bones had rudely taken the rest of himself away from Jim, so Jim kicked him, toe colliding with his ankle, and Jim said ‘ow’ first.

 

He’d been hoping, more than a little, that they would sleep in the same room. He didn’t care which room, who would follow who. (And wasn’t that a total lie: if Jim wasn’t caught up on the idea that it had to be Bones that made it happen, had to be Bones that made the first move so Jim would know the doctor was 100% okay with it, he’d have followed him to bed the first night.) But he’d been counting on it nonetheless and tonight would make four nights and still nothing. 

 

“Alright, you giant six-year-old,” Bones grumbled when Jim kicked him again, reaching down to haul Jim to his feet, “let’s hit the hay.”

 

Hope flared briefly in Jim’s chest, quickly squashed down when Bones let go of him again. “Hay is for horses.” Jim chuckled, then rubbed his hands over his face, knuckling his numb cheeks. “M’gonna go say g’night to the animals,” he said, rooting around in the dark for his boots, pulling them on over his flannel pajama pants.

 

“Whoa, Jim-boy,” Bones caught Jim as he swayed, trying to stand on one foot to lace his boot and nearly toppling over. “You’re drunk.”

 

“As a skunk,” Jim agreed, jamming his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and adding under his breath, “And yet you still won’t put out.”

 

Bones went still for a moment, then started pulling on his own gear, keeping his head down. “M’going with you.”

 

=^=

 

“Used to do this when I was a kid.” Their frosty breath commingled freely in the frigid night air and Jim watched the billowing cloudy shapes, oddly fascinated. “Christmas eve, sneak out here after the grown-ups were in bed, check on the animals. Dunno why.”

 

“S’nice,” Bones said, his voice gruff and muffled behind a thick wool scarf. “Peaceful out here.”

 

“Yeah,” Jim sighed deeply, rubbed his hands together and then stuck them under his armpits to keep warm. To their right, the chicken coop was a rustling blur of soft coos and clucks, and behind that the horses were stamping in their stalls. The milk cows lay together in the hay, watching the two men with sleepy interest. The southeast end of the barn opened into the lower field and the stars twinkled over the sparkling snow. The barn was a little haven of soft sounds and sleepy warmth, but beyond it the silence of the night felt more oppressive than it had inside the house and every thought felt five times harder, five times heavier. He was very drunk and Bones was a quiet, solid, but ultimately uncertain presence beside him.

 

“You wanna know why my grandma is acting like this is the first Christmas to ever…Christmas?” Jim asked suddenly, needing to hear his own voice. “It’s because it is. Kind of. I mean. This is the first time she gets to do a family Christmas in, I dunno. A long damn time. And she’s excited your kid’s here. Hasn’t got to do Christmas for a _good_ kid in…ever.”

 

“Oh, come on,” Bones shuffled his feet. “Your grandmother seems to think you hang you moon. You’re not gonna convince me you were a devil child.”

 

Jim shrugged. “I was…a problem child.”

 

“Well, who in the damn galaxy ain’t.”

 

“Why do you hate Christmas so much?” Jim asked.

 

“Why do you love it so much?” Bones countered.

 

Jim tried to smile, fighting to keep his teeth from chattering. “I love all holidays, Bones. How do you not know this about me by now? Any reason to celebrate. Any reason to spend time with the people you…you know.” He shivered and hugged himself tighter.

 

“Cold?” Bones asked, reaching out just as Jim turned to face him. They collided as they always seemed to; with a fumbling kind of grace that felt way too good, way too right, to be accidental. Bones shuddered, a long slow wave that wracked his whole body, when Jim’s cold hands slid into his jacket and worked their way under his collar to rest against his skin. The sudden flash of goosebumps under his fingers drew Jim on, fascinated him, distracted him from dark eyes and chapped lips and he thought maybe he’d just stay here, just live right here where he wasn’t asking for too much, just a touch, just a little warmth.

 

“Jim.” Bones had Jim’s wrists held tight for a moment but then released him, ran his hands up Jim’s arms to his shoulders to his face, pulling him down, pressing Jim’s forehead to his. “Jim. You gotta know. If, we, if things were different—“

 

“What _things_ , Bones?” Jim half-laughed, his voice coming out way too loud. He curled one hand around the back of Bones’s neck and shook him lightly. “What’s ever gonna change?”

 

Bones looked wrecked, his eyes just a pair of dark glittering shadows in the low light, but the lines around his mouth were dug down deep. “Nothing.”

 

“Yeah.” Jim shook his head, clenching his jaw. “So we’re never, you’re really never gonna let us…”

 

Bones swallowed, and Jim could feel the pulse below his ears tripping along under the press of Bones’s thumbs. “We could try.”

 

“Try what?”

 

“Go to the admirals. Make a case. You did it for Spock and Uhura.”

 

Jim snorted, all the booze in his stomach not sitting so well all of a sudden. “You want me to petition them to let you be my boyfriend, Bones?”

 

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

“The worst that could…Bones!” Jim barked his name, scrabbling at him, suddenly frantic. “For Christ’s sake, the worst that could happen is exactly what’s gonna happen if we try that. They’ll say _No_ and transfer you off of _Enterprise_ and then what the hell would I—Jesus, Bones, how drunk are you?”

 

“Almost drunk enough to put out, it would appear,” Bones growled against Jim’s lips and Jim went very still for a moment before surging into Bones, grabbing him by the collar and kissing him hard, biting at his lips until Bones stopped fighting against him and started working with him. 

 

He had Bones backed across the barn and pressed into the stack of hay bales in a hot minute and there was dust and feathers and stems of hay _everywhere_ and Jim would be sneezing for a week if they kept this up much longer but Bones wasn’t pushing him away, wasn’t saying no, so Jim wasn’t about to be the one to end this. 

 

It wasn’t the first time he’d done this. Ended up out in the barn with his hand down someone’s pants. First time with Bones, though, and that counted for something. Jim liked to catalogue first times. Hated that with Bones, there was always the traitorous thought not far from his mind that it could just as easily be the last time. So he made it count. Went to his knees in the straw and didn’t let himself think about anything for a long time.

 

Collapsing back into the hay, Jim grinned up at Bones. “Merry Christmas.”

 

“Jackass.” Bones rolled his eyes and shoved at Jim’s shoulder, then just as quickly tugged him back, holding him close. He was quiet until his chest had stopped rising and falling in crazy, frantic bursts, and then his voice rumbled against Jim’s temple. “I don’t like Christmas because I don’t like pretending things are okay when they’re not. Makin’ more of family ties than they usually deserve. Tellin’ some dumb story to the kids only to have to explain later just why you lied to ‘em in the first place. What you said, before. About how there’s some things you just do? That ain’t a good enough reason for me. Never was.” 

 

Jim’s laugh sounded tragic to his own ears. “Bones…how is that not _exactly_ what we’re doing? We’re lying to everyone every time we act like there’s not something here,” he moved his hand in the small space between them. “And we’re doing it just…just because. Because that’s just what we have to do. And it’s killing me, Bones. I swear it is. And I just. I don’t know what to _do._ ”

 

Bones reached for him, skimming his fingers across Jim’s cheeks and eyebrows, coming to rest with his palm cradling Jim’s face. It was the kind of caress, intimate and slow and way too personal, that Jim would have laughed off in their Academy days, stopped right in its tracks before it got even this far, but he craved it now. Didn’t know when that switch had flipped, didn’t know when Bones had become it for him. Shaking his head slowly, he repeated, “I don’t know what to do.”

 

Bones smiled, sad and weary. “Take every holiday shore leave together? Keep hiding out in barns and orchards and nameless hotels?”

 

“Yeah,” Jim huffed, turned his head to press a kiss to Bones’s palm, then pulled himself upright, scrubbing hay out of his hair. “Yeah, I guess so. For now.”

 

=^=

 

In the morning, Joanna rolled her eyes and explained to Jim that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, and even if there was, since he knows everything then he would _know_ that she doesn’t like to be called Joanna-Banana, but she would look at the presents “Santa” had left for her “just to humor him.” She seemed to lose a year off her age with every gift she unwrapped until she was all gleaming eyes and candy-stained mouth, squealing with delight as the toys and games and books piled up around her. She fell asleep again after a late breakfast that consisted entirely of cinnamon rolls with her head on Jim’s knee while he read her _The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey_ , one of the books his mom had read out loud every Christmas when she wasn’t off-planet. It was about an old Earth woodcarver who’d lost his wife and baby and Jim didn’t know how Winona had ever gotten through the whole thing with dry eyes. As it was he was grateful that Jo fell asleep before the end, sparing him the embarrassment of explaining to her why a simple story had him all choked up.

 

Bones settled gently onto the sofa beside him and put his arm around Jim’s shoulders, resting his head against Jim’s for a moment. “Maybe,” he said after a quiet minute, “maybe in a few years, we could have this. Come back to Earth. Have a place like this. If you want.”

 

Jim’s grandparents were singing together softly in the kitchen, an old carol of half-forgotten words. The logs shifted and settled in the fireplace, sending up a spray of cheerful sparks as the wind whisked a few fitful snowflakes past the window. Jo stirred in her sleep and Jim took her small hand in his, quieting her. 

 

“Yeah,” Jim said, turning to kiss Bones softly, lips pressed to the corner of his mouth, all stubble and coffee and cinnamon and a quiet, hopeful promise that this wouldn’t be the last time. “Yeah. Maybe we could.”


End file.
